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‘Have You Seen’ offers commissions for social recommendations

Traffic Junction has launched a new service that turns consumers into affiliate marketers through the use of social recommendations.

After signing up to Have You Seen, consumers can send unique links to their friends and family recommending products from a range of retailers.

It is compatible with email, Facebook, Twitter and Google+, and if the recipient buys a product through the link the original user is paid commission by the merchant.

After a successful beta trial period the service already has an impressive list of merchants signed up, including Amazon, Sainsbury’s, British Airways and Nike.

Traffic Junction says that it conducted research which found that 45% of British consumers recommend products and services via email and social media, so the potential for revenue already exists.

Commercial director Dan Pearce said that users receive 100% of the commission and can choose to share it with the person who bought the product.

“During the beta phase the most popular choice was to share the revenue with friends. The average purchase was £55 and average commission was 5%, but it will be interesting to see if that stays the same as we get more users on board.”

Commission is paid to users through PayPal or a bank transfer, but they can only collect the money once they have earned £20 in commission.

With an average commission of £2.75 it may take a while for users to reach the £20 minimum, but Traffic Junction hopes that consumers will eventually make a habit of recommending products using Have You Seen.

We see it as being similar to the existing cashback model, but the whole process is based on referral so you can’t buy products using your own links. Therefore it brings in new customers and drives incremental revenue.

At this stage Traffic Junction does not receive any revenue from Have You Seen as it is still working out the best way to charge for the service.

It’s been born out of a profitable company so we are able to take a long term view and get the monetisation right rather than rushing it and making the wrong decision.

Have You Seen isn’t the first service to offer consumers commission for successful recommendations.

Multi-screen activities while watching TV are very common with many viewers also on their computers, tablets and mobiles.

According to the Econsultancy/ IAB report, The Multi-Screen Marketer, the way viewers engage with their other screens changes depending on what program they are watching.

We’ve broken down the percentage of commerce and non-commerce activities for seven major program areas as well as highlighted the top activities for specific programmes and put them in a handy infographic.

The research highlights that the rise of cross-channel marketing is helping to fuel growth in the email marketing industry. Rather than operating in its own silo, email is now seen as an essential component of a wider campaign. Thanks to the rise of mobile, email is now everywhere, accessible anywhere, at any time and at any location.

Companies are pouring billions of dollars a year into social media and influencer marketing campaigns, many of which target consumers on Facebook-owned Instagram, in an effort to parlay social engagement into sales.